KKR Capital Markets
Good place to start a career if the end goal is on the Acquisition’s side? What would this role consist of?
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That is their in house equity fundraising and debt capital markets team. I am on the same type of team at another mega fund and I would say the role is more similar to investment banking (like a financial sponsors group) than it would be traditional real estate. Obviously KKR is a great shop and I would assume you would have great exit opportunities (I.e to acquisitions) if you wanted to leave. However, this is not equivalent to a “capital markets” role at JLL/CBRE/Cushman.
Starting your career at KKR will literally give you unlimited career optionality. Not sure what else to say here but your resume will get looked at for anything even remotely relevant if that is your first gig out of school and you decide you want to head to greener pastures after 2-3 years.
Be careful with advice like this - you have to consider the actual opportunity. Working on an in house capital markets team at KKR is not nearly as good of an opportunity as working on their acquisitions team. Not even close.
This comment is similar to saying if your first job out of school is debt asset management at TPG’s mortgage reit, you have unlimited career potential. It’s a fine first job, but I’d take Acquisitions at a “low prestige” company like AIG over debt AM at TPG (or OPs opportunity) any day of the week.
Quality of the role is more important than quality of the company in most situations
I didn't say this was the ideal job for him, nor did I say he should definitely accept this role. Nor did he say hey, I've got this offer vs an offer doing XYZ at some other shop. I'm just answering the question asked - would starting my career in capital markets at KKR be a good start if I wanted to transition to a role in acquisitions at some point? The answer to that is yes. I don't disagree with your overarching point - if he wants to be in acquisitions and he has an opportunity in acquisitions at a halfway decent firm, that is likely a better option. But...that wasn't the question.
I’m focusing on the “unlimited career optionality” point. There are definitely jobs that give more career optionality than in-house capital markets at KKR. You seem to agree with this but it’s not reflected in your original comment
I actually disagree with that point. I think in the day and age we live in, where jobs get posted online and 10000 qualified people apply and hiring managers have noodle dick energy when it comes to thinking outside the box (eg: Can't hire a debt analyst to be an equity associate because you have too much debt experience) nothing opens doors like a fat, sexy name brand on a resume.
To clarify what I'm saying and where we disagree - if OP knows for a fact that all he wants to do is be an acquisitions pro and that is the end all and be all for him, I would agree with you that he is likely better served being an acquisitions analyst at a medium sized / "medium prestige" company than being a balance sheet manager at KKR.
Where I disagree with you looks like what I take Career Optionality to mean - I'm saying that a 2 year out of undergrad stint at KKR will leave the maximum amount of doors open to him. He could likely transition to most real estate jobs and even have a decent shot at other verticals in finance. I'm not saying that this will lead to the best outcome for him or what hes trying to do - I'm just saying what I'm saying. Starting your career at a blackstone/carlyle/KKR will leave the maximum amount of doors open to you for things that you might want to take a whack at next.
Again, I agree that there are better positions for him out there if he knows for a fact he wants to be an acq guy. Being an acq analyst at some mid-tier firm in NYC for two years will likely give him a much better chance of being an senior acq pro than taking this gig at KKR. But I'm rather certain that taking this gig at KKR will leave more doors open to him then taking say...an acq gig at GAIA real estate (literally only using this name because there is another thread in this forum about them / no shade intended).
I think that is doubly important for a guy at 21 trying to figure out what he's trying to do. It's well and good to have an idea of what you want to do, but for most people, you're guessing as much as anything since you don't actually have any professional experience. My encouragement of him pursuing this position is based on that premise, not that I think this is the most A+ job for a guy who is dead set on being an acquisitions guy. I'll return to my initial point, which is that after two years of this job he decides he still wants to be an acq guy, he'll find an acq role. I do not disagree that if he's also juggling an acq role at ....LaSalle (literally another random name I'm pulling here) that the acq role at LaSalle will likely make that an easier hill to climb. But without knowing what else OP has in the pipeline, thats all bullshit and conjecture.
This is false. If OP takes the KKR Capital Markets job, he can use the KKR platform to lateral within KKR to K-Star/any acquisitions team if he chooses to. This is like saying, take the boiler room IB job at a no name versus a BB commercial banking job. At this point in his/her career the network they gain is more important than what they do early because they’re not specialized yet so it’s not like one year of experience will hold them back from starting an entirely new job.
Lateraling internally is very risky and very difficult. Would not take that job thinking you could achieve an internal lateral.
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